Thursday, March 19, 2015

For TBT, this is one of my reviews originally written and published in the late 1990s. I've updated the links.

Michael Auld at Fondo del Sol: An Art ReviewBy F. Lennox Campello
Originally Published in Visions Magazine for the Arts

I remember as a little boy the story of Hatuey, told to me by my grandmother,
who had been raised as a little girl in Cuba. Hatuey was a Taino Indian
Chief from the
island of Hispaniola who was a witness to the atrocities the Spaniards
were committing
upon his people.

The Hispaniola Tainos had received Columbus and his
fellow
Europeans with open arms, and the Spaniards had brutalized the Indians
in return.
Hatuey sailed to neighboring Cuba and warned the Cuban Tainos about the
Europeans.

When Columbus and his ships showed up, they were received not with open
arms but
with armed resistance. Eventually Hatuey was captured by the Spaniards
and prepared
for burning at the stake.

A Spanish priest asked Hatuey if he wanted to
repent from his
sins and be baptized before being burned at the stake. The baptism,
promised the priest,
would ensure that Hatuey go to heaven and live happily among the
Christians. Hatuey
asked if the bearded white men would go to heaven when they too died.
The priest
nodded yes and said that the Spaniards would go to heaven because they
were good
Christians.

"In that case," replied Hatuey as the flames began to lick
at his feet, "I want
to go to hell."Just like my grandmother, I have always believed and been told that the
Caribbean
Indians, comprised of the peaceful Tainos, the warlike Caribs and the
Arawaks were all
extinct as a result of mass suicide, murder, disease and Spanish
enslavement.

We were all wrong! The Fondo del Sol Visual Arts Center in Washington
currently has
on display an extraordinary exhibit by sculptor Michael Auld which not
only pays
homage to many of the Caribbean Indians' legends and stories, but also
offers (via two
fascinating videos), clear evidence that descendants of the Caribbean
Indians still live in
isolated, mountainous areas of the Caribbean islands.

The exhibition's center piece is an extraordinary wooden sculpture of
Itiba Cahubaba, the
legendary Earth mother of Taino legend. This stunning piece depicts the
Earth mother
giving birth simultaneously to two sets of twins, who became the fathers
of mankind.
This is a gripping piece not only because of its artistic value, but
more importantly
because it marks the rebirth of Taino culture after nearly 500 years of
being nearly
forgotten, erased and virtually destroyed.

Also on display are three large wooden totemic sculptures depicting
three stories in the
Spanish conquest of the islands. The Hatuey story is here, as well as
the story of the rape
of a Carib woman by Spanish Conquistador Miguel de Cuneo, recorded in
his own
words: "I captured a very beautiful Carib woman, who the Admiral gave to
me... I
conceived a desire to take my pleasure... but she did not want it... I
beat her with a
rope...Finally we came to terms...She seemed to be brought up in a
school of harlots."The third piece represents the drowning of a Spaniard by Cuban Tainos.
The Spaniards
had passed themselves as Gods, and the Cuban Indians decided to test
this claim, and one
day submerged one of the Conquistadores under water in a river. When he
died, the
Indians realized that he was a mere human, and the word quickly spread
to other Indians
on the island and the Europeans had to fight from there on.

There are many great pieces on exhibition at the Center, and the show
establishes
Michael Auld (who was born in Jamaica) as one of the best sculptors in
the city, but it
equally re-affirms the importance of a place like the Fondo del Sol,
which gives artists
like Auld an opportunity to exhibit work which most commercial galleries
and museums
would ignore.

Furthermore, the evidence recorded in video by Auld (during a visit to
the island of
Dominica in 1992), which depicts visual evidence of a supposedly
"extinct" people
holding on to a remote enclave in the north of the island, is a visceral
reminder of a
people nearly destroyed, almost erased and yet shouting to be heard.

This is an extraordinary, seminal yet important show, which for the
first time in art
history presents a people's cultural ancestry being rediscovered via
contemporary art. Mr.
Auld, and just as importantly, the Fondo del Sol Visual Arts Center are
to be
complemented and honored for delivering this exhibition, and I hope the
Smithsonian
anthropologists and historians are listening!

The Fondo del Sol (which is run by its exuberant, Havana-born director
Marc Zuver), is
an artist-run alternative museum located at 2112 R Street, NW in the
Dupont Circle area
of Washington, D.C. The exhibit closes on February 10, and the museum
can be reached
at (202) 483-2777.